Since LL, I've been getting into a lot of DIY projects. Made my own headphones, my own bookshelf, my own lamp, and especially my own projector It's all been pretty easy. I want something more of a challenge, which I have no instructions to follow. So I'm thinking of making my own wireless headphones. The best option for this is Bluetooth, since radio frequencies are often garbled and static-filled. As I've said, there are no instructions to follow, so this will be the first time (as far as I know) that somebody's done true DIY wireless headphones, and my first time being a trail-blazer.

My plan is to buy a small and cheap, about $0.99 on eBay, BT transmitter, which I will hook up to my MP3 or other music player. This will send out the signals. I plan to purchase and take apart a BT headset commonly used for cellphones, and see if I can't find out how it's hooked up, then rig it to my headphones. I'm worried that this will not work, because headphones are stereo with no mic, and headsets are mono with a mic. But since mics and heaphones use essentially the same technology, would this not work? Or am I worrying about a non-existent problem?

If any of you have recommendations on how I should proceed, please share.

This DIY project intrigued me, as I have been looking around for wireless headphones.

So I did some searching, a-la Google. I'm sorry to say it, but you're not trailblazing.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%2...earch&meta=

I found the following article interesting, and perhaps you might, as well:

http://llemarie.wordpress.com/2007/09/29/p...ess-headphones/

Here's another interesting article:

http://eastep.blogspot.com/2005/06/bluetoo...ne-upgrade.html

Ah, my friend, you are wrong. The first two links you popped up, I've seen those before (in fact, I did the same search as you ). That is simply taking out the speakers from a pair of store-bought wireless and soldering in earbuds instead. Not such a big deal.

See, what I'm hoping to do is go from only one single pair of wired headphones into BT wireless. Don't be fooled by those sites... it's simple replacements. I'll be going from scratch.

So I will be trailblazing! Yay!


Either way, I plan to go to Fred Meyer tomorrow to get a BT headset. If worst comes to worst, I could use it on my laptop.



EDIT: The third link is actually similar to what I plan to do. But not the same. I'm hoping to be able to use a mono+mic headset instead of a brand new pair of BT headphones, which are pretty expensive.

So I've bought the Jabra A210 BTA (bluetooth adapter). I do hope that if I take of the cell-phone input jack and replace it with a standard headphone jack it will work with my MP3 player (software-wise).

This Instructable shows the breakdown of a Motorola headset. As you can see on Step 5, the speaker has two wires, and while you can't see the mic wires, I would assume that it only has one. This would be a hindrance since my headphones have four wires: two for each side.


Sadly, I'll have to suspend this until next weekend at best. I don't have funds in my PayPal right now so I can't actually buy that BTA yet.


Does anybody know if my plan of using this BTA with a stereo headphone device will work?

EDIT: Oh hell, you *can* see the mic wires. And there *are* two of them! I'll have to wait until next week to check my theories.

I am looking into this as well. Lumenlab wasn't where I started in my research, but it is cool that my journey includes it. I built a projector in the past (with LumenLab's great forums as a guide) and it was a fun and rewarding experience.

Here is a little guide covering what I think you are trying to do using an FM transmitter rather than a Bluetooth transmitter.
http://ycardinal.googlepages.com/home. If you are succesfull, you might have the first bluetooth solution.

I am looking to come up with a wireless entertainment solution to use with my elliptical machine. My basic idea is to use a wireless XBox 360 controller to control my PC, for games and movies. Headphones are so that early morning workouts do not disturb those who are still sleeping. The controller does have a headphone jack, so I think I could use a standard wired headset with the controller. However, a wireless headset would be ideal.

The nice thing about an elliptical workout is that the motion is non impact and smooth. This makes it a better gaming platform than jogging on a treadmill. My goal is to balance quality and cost and lose weight. An immersive experience will help facilitate an entertaining, exercise environment. Unfortunately, my elliptical is not in the room with my projector, that would definately be cool and immersive!

I am doing some research on audio quality and wireless transmission methods. From my initial survey, I think that Bluetooth may not be CD quality or could vary based on the transmitter being used. Will be continuing to look at transmission methods and quality.

I found a company called Averna working with the 2.4Ghz range, which claims cd quality sound. They have received some interesting press within the last couple of months.

Here are 3 articles (One lists the price of a pair of the chips as being $14 or less):

http://www.insidedsp.com/tabid/64/articleT...37/Default.aspx
http://www.twice.com/article/CA6493654.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6214456.html

I requested product information on their transmitter/receiver modules.
http://www.avnera.com/pages/products_audioMagic_modules.php

I am curious to find out if these are available for purchase in limited quantities and are configuarable at a DIY level.

I think most bluetooth transmitters compress the audio before sending wirelessly. This compromises sound quality. If the sound source was already compressed (.mp3, .wmf, .aac) it is recompressed (further data loss) before being sent wirelessly via bluetooth.

I found a recent article (8/1/2007) which mentions a lossless codec for Bluetooth wireless stereo.

Here is a link to the article:

http://edageek.com/2007/08/01/open-interface-north-america/

Wish i could just buy a decent set, that work well .... ive had 3 sets so far from cheap to mid price, its the drop outs that drives me nuts ..


regards marc